Last Chance to Learn the Latest Trends & Innovations with Industry Experts from Leading 3D Printing Companies

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If you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to break into 3D printing or take your skills to the next level, your wait is over! Right now is the perfect time to sign up for our showcase of 3D printing trends and innovations,3D Printing in Aerospace, Construction, Consumer Goods, and Other Industries. The three-day online conference runs June 5-7 with seven speaker sessions from leading 3D printing companies in different areas of the industry.

In addition to the dynamic live speaker sessions each day, you have the option to split into small area-focused groups led by a mentor who will scaffold the class experience just for you. You’ll be exposed to the best 3D print programs via live demos, and you’ll emerge from the online conference inspired and ready to take the next step in the field of 3D printing.

We’ll kick things off on June 5 with Ir. Manuel Michiels of Materialise Software, where he will address one of the main challenges to raise productivity in metal additive manufacturing: support structures generation and removal. Michiels will show you how an innovative software like Materialise increases cost-efficiencies up to 90% in the metal production workflow. Further, he will talk about how the industry is evolving to increase the accuracy, traceability and repeatability necessary to enter mass manufacturing environments. And he’ll finish up his session by briefly giving a big-picture analysis and context to show the possibilities this innovation has for the manufacturing industry.

After a live Q&A, we’ll move into designer, maker, and engineer Salvador Richter’s inspiring presentation on the past, present, and future of the 3D printing. Richter is a 3D print design guru with decades of experience and insight as he has watched the industry evolve and transform over the years. You’ll have the chance to ask him questions and then you will have the chance to network and discuss in our online classroom, where you will find resources and recordings of the sessions just in case you want to look back at them.

For day 2, June 6, you’ll get the perspective of four expert speakers over three different sessions:

And on the last day, June 7, you’ll learn from Daniel Soltan, a materials development researcher who focuses on structural and infrastructural applications. He will share his findings on how printable, strain-hardening cementitious composites, also called “self-reinforced, printable cementitious composites,” can redefine the building-scale 3D printing industry at this current pivotal moment in development. He will talk about how this paradigm shift in how we select and design print materials offers building-scale 3D printing a necessary list of advantages to the construction industry.

Following Soltan’s Q&A, you’ll hear the last speaker session of the online conference from Autodesk’s Rob Cohee. In this session, learn how some of the world’s most innovative companies are using generative design with additive manufacturing to solve engineering challenges and come up with design solutions that the human mind could never conceive.

It’s your last chance to join in this incredible learning opportunity, so don’t hesitate: register today!

Sculpteo's State of 3D Printing 2018: A Steady March Toward Production

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When assessing the state of the 3D printing industry, a strong resource emerges annually from Sculpteo, whose aptly named State of 3D Printing report offers a carefully compiled look into the industry and the direction in which it is heading. Last year, the State of 3D Printing report showed that the professional side of the 3D printing industry is growing, as Sculpteo’s CEO affirmed to us.

“I think it‘s very interesting every year, as we see the world is getting more and more serious, there is less and less hype around 3D printing, and more and more reality,” Sculpteo CEO and Founder Clément Moreau told 3DPrint.com last year.

In this year’s report, that trend continues, and then some. Excitingly, Sculpteo states that 3D printing is heading towards mass production – not a complete surprise, but it’s encouraging to hear it confirmed.

Over 1,000 people participated in the survey on which Sculpteo bases its report. 4% more women responded this year than last year – a small increase, but an increase all the same. Respondents came from a variety of industry segments including industrial goods, consumer goods, aerospace and aeronautics, and healthcare.

The field of professional 3D printing users continues to expand. 70% of respondents indicated that their 3D printing spending would increase in 2018, as opposed to 49% the previous year, and 38% of respondents stated that they would spend between $1,001 and $10,000 this year. 93% of companies see 3D printing as a competitive advantage, and 74% state that their competitors are also using the technology. Investment in 3D printing is up, and return on investment is stable.

A noteworthy finding this year is the dramatic increase in production 3D printing. 43% of respondents used the technology for production purposes in 2018, up from 22% in 2017. Metal, as always, continues to rise, with use of metal 3D printing technology growing from 28% to 36% this year. Direct Metal Laser Sintering technology, in particular, is growing, with 21% of respondents reporting that they have used it.

More companies are buying and using their own 3D printers, and the skill level of users is growing as well, with nearly half of respondents labeling themselves as experts in additive manufacturing, as opposed to only 20% last year.

39% of respondents indicated that their top priority with 3D printing was accelerating product development, followed by offering customized products and limited series, as well as increasing production flexibility. Respondents also indicated that they are prioritizing increasing the expertise and education of workers. According to Sculpteo, respondents are more focused on innovating quickly than offering product variety, a change from last year. In terms of 3D printing activities themselves, machine capabilities and material supply and cost were the most important. The demand for innovation and variety in materials and machines continues to grow. The majority of respondents believe that decreasing costs will have the biggest impact on the additive manufacturing industry in the near future.

Sculpteo also took a closer look at three particular sectors this year: industrial goods, consumer goods and aeronautics. The report found that businesses in the industrial goods sector use 3D printing mostly for prototyping and production, but that they use it for production purposes more than other respondents. Respondents in the consumer goods sector are using 3D printing largely for small batch production, while those in the aeronautics field are using it mainly for production – in fact, 64% of respondents said they were using the technology for production purposes, a much larger percentage than other sectors.

There are many takeaways from this year’s State of 3D Printing report, but the biggest one is probably that use of 3D printing for production purposes is increasing, and looks like it will continue to increase. That’s a big deal for a technology that for a long time has been thought of as mainly a means of prototyping.

You can learn more information and more specific details by downloading the full, free State of 3D Printing report, which you can do here.

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A 3D printed foot model (L) and its cross section reveal intricate internal architecture of the different bone types, as well as the surrounding soft tissue.

Doctors need MRI and CT scans to further evaluate, and diagnose, medical conditions. These scans produce high-resolution images in a series of slices which show the details of structures in a person’s body and can later be 3D printed into a detailed physical model.

Unfortunately, these images are so detailed that the part that needs to be 3D printed has to be isolated from the surrounding tissue, then converted into surface meshes. While a computer can quickly complete this in an automatic thresholding process, it can over- or under-exaggerate the object’s size, and also wash out important details.

Now, a new 3D printing technique by a collaborative research team allows these medical scans to be quickly converted into highly detailed, 3D printed models with ease – and at less cost.

High-throughput tissue filtering can help quickly remove extraneous tissues to reveal the desired underlying structures (R) without sacrificing resolution or intensity gradients in the native imaging data (L and center).

“I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw what this technology is able to do. It creates exquisitely detailed 3D-printed medical models with a fraction of the manual labor currently required, making 3D printing more accessible to the medical field as a tool for research and diagnosis,” said Beth Ripley, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology at the University of Washington, and clinical radiologist at the Seattle VA.

It all started in 2016, when Steven Keating, PhD, had a brain tumor the size of a baseball removed while he was a graduate student in the MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter group. He wanted a better understanding of his diagnosis and treatment options, and to see what his brain looked like with the tumor, and started 3D printing his MRI and CT scans. Frustrated with how difficult, lengthy, and non-accurate the current methods were, he contacted some of the group’s collaborators, including members of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

Ahmed Hosny, a Research Fellow with the Wyss Institute at the time and now a Machine Learning Engineer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said, “It never occurred to us to use this approach for human anatomy until Steve came to us and said, ‘Guys, here’s my data, what can we do?'”

The collaboration grew to include Neri Oxman, PhD, Director of the Mediated Matter group and Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; James Weaver, PhD, Senior Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute; and a team of physicians and researchers from the US and Germany. Supported by a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Preis 2010, they published a paper on their work in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

“Curiosity is one of the biggest drivers of innovation and change for the greater good, especially when it involves exploring questions across disciplines and institutions,” said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, MD, PhD, who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “The Wyss Institute is proud to be a space where this kind of cross-field innovation can flourish.”

The team’s new method is an accurate, quick way to convert complex images into an easily 3D printable format. It uses a digital file format called dithered bitmaps, where each pixel from a grayscale image is converted into black and white pixels; the density of the black ones defines the various shades of gray.

Think of how newsprint images convey shading through differing sizes of black ink dots – the more black pixels in an area, the darker it looks. Dithered bitmaps simplify all of an image’s pixels from shades of gray into a black and white mixture, which means a 3D printer can use two materials to quickly produce complex medical images that preserve variations from the original data.

Weaver said, “Our approach not only allows for high levels of detail to be preserved and printed into medical models, but it also saves a tremendous amount of time and money. Manually segmenting a CT scan of a healthy human foot, with all its internal bone structure, bone marrow, tendons, muscles, soft tissue, and skin, for example, can take more than 30 hours, even by a trained professional – we were able to do it in less than an hour.”

The researchers created models of Keating’s brain and tumor through bitmap-based 3D printing that preserved all of the gradations from the raw MRI data in high-resolution detail. Their method was also used to 3D print a variable stiffness, multimaterial model of a human heart valve.

The goal now is make this method more feasible for patient education and routine exams.

“Right now, it’s just too expensive for hospitals to employ a team of specialists to go in and hand-segment image data sets for 3D printing, except in extremely high-risk or high-profile cases,” Hosny explained. “We’re hoping to change that.”

The team needs some help from the medical community to achieve this goal. It’s hard to get the raw MRI or CT scan files necessary for high-resolution 3D printing, as most of this data is compressed for space-saving purposes.

In addition, the team worked with Stratasys to use its 3D printer’s intrinsic bitmap printing capabilities, but new software packages need to be developed so others can have access to these capabilities.

However, they believe that their work could “present a significant value to the medical community.”

Weaver said, “I imagine that sometime within the next 5 years, the day could come when any patient that goes into a doctor’s office for a routine or non-routine CT or MRI scan will be able to get a 3D-printed model of their patient-specific data within a few days.

“The ability to understand what’s happening inside of you, to actually hold it in your hands and see the effects of treatment, is incredibly empowering.”

Co-authors of the paper include Hosny and Keating; Joshua Dilley, MD, from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH); Ripley; Tatiana Kelil, MD, with Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH); Steve Pieper, PhD, from the Surgical Planning Laboratory at BWH and the CEO of Isomics, Inc.; Dominik Kolb, MS, a former Research Assistant at the MIT Media Lab; Christoph Bader, MS, with the MIT Media Lab; Anne-Marie Pobloth, DVM, with the Julius Wolff Institute for Biomechanics and Musculoskeletal Regeneration at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Molly Griffin, from the Gillette Center for Women’s Cancer at MGH; Reza Nezafat, PhD, with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Georg Duda, PhD, with Biomechanics and Musculoskeletal Regeneration at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Director of the Julius Wolff Institute; Ennio Ciocca, MD, PhD, the Co-Director at the Institute for the Neurosciences and a professor at HMS; James Stone, MD, PhD, with MGH and HMS; James Michaelson, PhD, Director of the Laboratory for Quantitative Medicine at MGH; Mason Dean, PhD; from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces; Oxman; and Weaver.

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3D printing with metal is all about strength and durability. While it was originally relegated to the super-industrial realm, today nearly anyone interested in manufacturing objects out of a wide range of metal materials can get in on the game. Many companies have also taken on the specialty of producing and managing metal powders for use in aerospace, automotive, medical, and so many other dynamic fields. Now, Germany’s Solukon Maschinenbau GmbH is announcing a new product for their depowdering systems line to be on display at Rapid.Tech in Erfurt from June 5 to 7, 2018 (booth 2-301).

The SFM-AT200 will aid industrial customers further in 3D printing with metal, as they enjoy the convenience of automatic removal/processing of unfused powder left on bed fusion systems. This new system, made for build plates of up to 300 x 300 x 230 mm (11.8 x 11.8 x 9.1 inches), was designed with a small footprint in mind, and is capable of eliminating unwanted metal powder through rotation and vibration—freeing material from all internal areas of the parts and bed. Lined with stainless steel, the SFM-AT200 is safe for processing titanium, aluminum alloys and more; not only that, the power removed can be safely recycled.

“The SFM-AT200 incorporates the automatic features that Solukon has developed on its large frame systems into a compact platform, designed for use with small- to medium-sized metal powder bed fusion systems,” says Solukon Co-Founder Andreas Hartmann. “Customers already working with our large frame systems have validated what they require for high quality parts cleaning and hazard management, and now we are able to meet those needs with an entry-level system incorporating state-of-art solutions for depowdering.”

“In addition to a smaller footprint, the system also reduces inert gas consumption when used for processing reactive powders such as aluminun or titanium, which pose risks for explosion if not handled correctly,” said Co-Founder Dominik Schmid. “Thanks to our sealed cleaning process with the safety-monitored infusion of inert protective gas, the systems are certified for the safe processing of these materials.”

IMCRC is a cooperative research center dedicated to helping Australian companies increase their global relevance through research-led innovation in manufacturing. Its latest project involves a partnership with Downer’s Mineral Technologies business as well as the University of Technology Sydney Rapido advanced technology development unit. The three organizations will work together to research solutions that will advance ways in which composite polymers are used to manufacture mineral separation equipment and create new manufacturing technologies.

3D printing will be involved in the project, which is anticipated to run over a three-year period. The work will take place at a new additive manufacturing facility at the University of Technology’s Broadway campus, and will involve Rapido, a rapid prototyping unit established by the university in 2016 to help industry, government and community partners transform ideas and problems into solutions and products.

According to Rapido Director Herve Harvard, the unit is seeking research partnerships to engage staff and students in projects that help to bridge the gap between industry and universities. Two PhD students will be assigned to the project with IMCRC and Mineral Technologies.

“Partnering with Rapido harnesses a unique capability in terms of the breadth and depth of expertise, and advanced facilities we have at UTS,” said Harvard. “We can assemble multi-skilled teams to leverage the expertise of high performing engineers who have extensive experience in commercial research and development together with researchers who bring world-class academic expertise in key technology domains. This project demonstrates how UTS is becoming a leading university in additive manufacturing and, in this particular context, leading in the capability to develop bespoke 3D printing technologies suitable for manufacturing functional parts.”

[Image: IMCRC]

Alex de Andrade is Global Manager – Sales, Equipment and Technology for Mineral Technologies, as well as an Associate Professor at UTS. According to de Andrade, the project will focus on delivering 3D printed products with embedded Internet of Things-connected sensors. The sensors will direct operators to optimal set point recommendations in real time.

“This project will define an accelerated deposition and curing technique for AM which will hasten the way in which composite polymers are deposited to manufacture our mineral separation equipment, in particular, gravity spirals,” said de Andrade. “We expect to see positive environmental impacts, such as decreasing the need for chemicals and reducing air contamination, which will significantly improve the operational environment for our manufacturing workforce.”

The partners expect that the development of new additive manufacturing methods will attract the next generation of engineers and other workers who will become skilled at setting up 3D printers, profile programming and CAD meshing development.

IMCRC Managing Director David Chuter believes that the use of additive manufacturing technology will not only affect the manufacturing process of mining equipment but will also affect the associated supply chain operations, especially when that technology is fitted with IoT sensors.

“Mineral separation equipment is often operated in a remote and hostile environment,” he said. “Deploying gravity spirals fitted with IoT sensors will offer Mineral Technologies a clear picture of the product performance. We also see that this innovative manufacturing approach and research could yield benefits for other sectors, such as vertical agriculture and other applications.”

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“We see a lot of 3D printing companies who launch their product in the market and they are quickly caught by the daily issues selling and supporting their customers,” Gauthier told 3DPrint.com. “At some stage some of them do not innovate anymore because of this lack of time and they struggle to catch up. Working with our team can help them to focus where they really add value and expand their business, while we manage the electronic and software evolution with and for them. We build long term partnerships and try to help our partners in many different areas as we know their success will create our success too. We’re on the same boat!”

Five years ago, Create it REAL launched the world’s first real-time processor wholly dedicated to 3D printing, and sells its platform to corporate end-users and manufacturers that are interested in disrupting and driving their industries with 3D printing; they in turn use the platform, with its patent-pending technology, for ad-hoc projects. This technology features a print speed that’s up to five times faster than the FFF 3D printers currently available on the market…good news for the company’s new partners.

Dutch company Rodri is introducing an Eichenberger spindle-driven 3D printer, which was designed to work with technical materials like PEEK, PEI, and PEKK Carbon. The Rodri 3D printer has a heated print bed of 32 x 23 x 25 cm, which can get up to 120°C, and a fully enclosed stainless-steel chassis. It also features a linear motion axis and a hot end that can get up to 400°C.

Finally, Bulgarian engineering company RAST has a new large 3D printer, with a heated glass bed of 36 x 36 x 30 cm that can get up to 130°C, a hot end up to 350°C, and 2.85 mm filaments.

“We are very happy to see these fast-growing companies joining us and make the best out of our technology. This shows us there is a strong demand for high-end electronics, easy to use slicer software and a need to speed up 3D printers,” said Jeremie Pierre Gay, the Founder of Create it REAL. “We share the same vision of the market, where end users should not be afraid of using 3D printing to develop their own business. It should be simple, straightforward and reliable.”

Create it REAL chose these specific partners because their 3D printers provide low maintenance needs and consistent print quality at a good price, appealing for companies that require rapid prototyping and production 3D printers that don’t need much troubleshooting, so they can focus the attention on their customers.

Rodri 3D printer

These new 3D printers will soon be available on the manufacturers’ websites, and you can see the Dood and the Rodri 3D printers for yourself at the 3D Print Congress Exhibition in Lyon, France next week.

The company has also teamed up with KIMYA, the new name for 3D filament producer Armor 3D, in a strategic partnership to integrate its filaments as standard options in the Create it REAL slicer.

“We believe this partnership makes a lot of sense for final users: they will access to a wide range of complete packages, including 3D printers and software optimized for our materials,” said Pierre-Antoine Pluvinage, the Business Development Director for KIMYA. “No need to mess around with the settings and the machine, they will get the best 3D printing experience, with high-performance materials optimized for their usage, in a click of a button.”

KIMYA is dedicated to developing new 3D printing materials, like its sustainable PS OWA recycled filaments and more technical filaments, such as KIMYA PEKK Carbon. The latter, designed for highly technical applications, is easy to print, and is abrasion and chemical resistant; it’s also heat resistant up to 260° and flame retardant UL94 V0.

Soon, the settings for KIMYA’s filaments will be available through online updates to all of Create it REAL’s partners.

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Another exciting new addition to the official People of Print Membership is artist-printmaker Nick Satinover who resides just outside of Nashville in the ever-evolving middle Tennessee sprawl. Nick is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art in the Department of Art and Design at Middle Tennessee State University. Within this role, Nick teaches all levels of printmaking and covers all traditional processes as well as digital and experimental approaches to the medium. He is a father to twin boys (of course, multiples, right?) and pet-parent to an adopted kitten.

His work is informed by observations of the built environment, poetics, colour phenomenon and printmaking’s relationship to signage and didactic information. His current studio works utilise formal abstract language in conjunction with text to create images that create ambivalent visual experiences. Depth vs flatness, pattern vs gesture, chromatic vs achromatic, clarity vs ambiguity, compression vs openness are all strategies employed in his works. These dichotomies point to the negotiations people make as they experience the world which contains them.

Would you like to become a People of Print Member? Fill out this form to submit your application.

Bringing both the physical and digital together is Margate-based studio Face Invader Press. Their iconic Face Invader project has the purpose of giving cards a very personal and emotional exchange once more before modern digital photography and social networks completely take over the planet. These guys feel that the gesture of card giving has lost its way a little, and the way in which they intend of saving the world is to make the process a much bigger and personal experience. For them as well as those who receive.

BIOMODEX, a startup based in Boston and Paris, is a medical technology company that helps surgeons prepare for procedures with 3D printed anatomical models. The company’s innovative approach to what is becoming a more and more common need in the medical world has gotten it off to a good start, and this week BIOMODEX announced that it has concluded a $15 million round of financing led by Idinvest Partners. Other participants were InnovAllianz and longstanding shareholders LBO France and Inserm Transfert Initiative.

“The first $ 3.6M fundraising in 2016 allowed us to develop EVIAS, a unique product in the field of interventional neuroradiology, aimed at reducing operational risks during the treatment of intracranial aneurysms,” said BIOMODEX President Thomas Marchand. “The reliance once again placed on historical investors (LBO France and Inserm Transfert Initiative) as well as InnovAlllianz and Idinvest Partners, which led the way, gives us the opportunity to develop new products in interventional cardiology and strengthen our position in United States with a local production unit..”

3D printed anatomical models have been shown over and over again to result in more precise surgeries, reduced time on the operating table, reduced exposure to X-rays and better clinical results overall.

[Image: Biomodex]

“We were immediately impressed by the exceptional capacity for innovation and execution of the BIOMODEX team. This new fundraising will open up new prospects for BIOMODEX products and access to new growth markets,” said Luc Maruenda, Partner at Idinvest.

The other investors were equally as impressed.

“We are proud to support BIOMODEX in the development of a completely innovative solution to improve efficiency and individualize the preparation of complex surgical operations,” said Julien Martinez, Director of Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions and Innovation at Allianz France. “As an insurer, we believe that the value BIOMODEX brings will ultimately bring a new paradigm between insureds, surgeons and hospitals, the Medtech industry and insurance companies. This investment reflects the societal commitment of Allianz France and contributes to the dynamics of innovation and development of the real economy in France.”

“Since our initial investment in 2016, BIOMODEX has come a long way, both in the development of its INVIVOTECH technology and in understanding the ecosystem of surgeons, Medtech manufacturers and health payers,” added Valery Huot, Partner – Head of Venture at LBO France.

In other funding news, INTAMSYS, the maker of high-performance 3D printing solutions, has completed its Series A funding. The fundraising was led by CWB Capital, with participation from Brizan Investments. The investment will help the company to accelerate the deployment of its 3D printing solutions, which focus on high-performance, functional materials, and boost its research and development initiatives.

[Image: INTAMSYS]

“The new funding round will enable us to strengthen our support for application-driven innovation of our customers through enhancing mass customization 3D printing capabilities and enabling the creation and integration of digital supply chains,” said Charles Han, CEO of INTAMSYS.

INTAMSYS is known for the FUNMAT PRO and FUNMAT PRO HT 3D printers. This month, the company added PEKK to its portfolio of materials, bringing the total to six high-performance materials: PEEK, PEKK, ULTEM 9085, ULTEM 1010, PPSU and PSU. All in all, users of INTAMSYS 3D printers can print with more than 20 functional materials.

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